Legal budget exhausted, health board seeks more money

Having already exhausted its budget for attorney’s fees for the fiscal year ending June 30, the Lincoln City-County Board of Health seeks additional funds from the county.

“We’ve used our attorney Jinnifer Mariman quite a bit, so we’ve run out of money,” Chair Jan Ivers said at the Feb. 14 board meeting.

The Board of Health had budgeted $10,000 annually for legal fees. According to a draft letter Ivers wrote to the Lincoln County Commission, the Board seeks an additional $7,000 to tide it over until the next fiscal year.

Since being formed in November 2016, “the Board has found that the attorney has been utilized much more than anticipated,” Ivers wrote. “We have had much activity due to EPA funding/complexities, investigation and inquiries.”

Much of that activity has surrounded issues with the Cooperative Agreement between the Environmental Protection Agency and Lincoln County, an agreement that supports the administrative and educational activities of the Libby Asbestos Resource Program. The EPA has been investigating the apparent improper disbursement of grant funds to former special deputy county attorney R. Allen Payne and his legal firm, Doney Crowley Bloomquist Payne UDA.

The renewal of the agreement, in place since April 2012, was also delayed for months in 2017.

In the letter she drafted to the Commission, Ivers notes that “the Board has accomplished much in this last year.”

“Many policies and procedures have been developed or updated; the bylaws have been rewritten; and there have been many legal questions answered along with review of policies, procedures and bylaws,” she wrote.

As of Monday afternoon, no upcoming Commission meeting agendas indicated a presentation of the request.

Mariman, of Kalispell firm Moore, Cockrell, Goicoechea and Johnson, was appointed May 10, 2017 as a special deputy county attorney to represent the Board of Health.

Her appointment resulted from a busy Lincoln County Attorney’s Office having “neither the time nor expertise required to devote to the complex issues involved with the Board of Health,” according to the resolution that instated Mariman.

The resolution also stated Payne’s resignation was a contributing factor.